Pat Rollins: Practice makes perfect when bow hunting

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Posted Jan. 15, 2013 at 3:15 AM

Posted Jan. 15, 2013 at 3:15 AM

When my buddy Pete called I was certain that he’d contacted me to see if I wanted to join him for a day of rabbit hunting. I was surprised when he suggested I head over to his house to join him and Mike for a couple hours of archery practice. Several of my buddies and I are contemplating wild boar hunts this fall and Pete said he had something to help us get ready.

The invite made me curious and with temperatures flirting with 50 degrees, I couldn’t turn him down. So, after I dug my bow out of the gun safe and replaced the broad heads on my arrows with field tips, I slipped on my boots and headed out the door.

It took me about a half hour to drive to Pete’s house and as I turned into his driveway I spotted Mike and him standing by several cardboard boxes in the garage. As I climbed from the truck I couldn’t imagine what they were doing. However, as I got closer I noticed a huge label of a boar on the side of one of the boxes.

“Look what I got for Christmas,” Pete said with a big grin. “My wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a 3-D wild boar target. My two sons asked me the same question and I told them I wanted a wild boar target......I never dreamed that all three of them would get me one. They did and now I’ve got three!”

We helped Pete open the boxes and took a couple minutes to look over the targets while we talked about how we wanted to practice shooting at them.

“I think we ought to go down to your wood lot and set the targets out in front of a ground blind,” Mike suggested.

“Seems like I remember a small brush pile we could get behind just inside the woods,” I said looking toward Pete.

My big friend nodded in agreement and picked a marker off a work bench and drew a little diagram on one of the boxes.

“Let’s make a place to shoot from behind the brush and put one of these boars broadside about 30 yards in front of the blind, then we can set the other two at angles on either aide of the blind.”

“Let’s do it!” Mike said as he grabbed his bow with one hand and a boar target with the other.

We spent quite a while moving things around to help us create a realistic hunting situation. Then we took the time to position each 3-D wild boar target to give us the opportunity to take some shots that we might encounter on our hunts before we reached for the bows.

“Pete, they’re your targets, it’s only right that you get to poke the first holes in them,” Mike said. “We’ll step back and you go for it.”

Mike and I stood behind a clump of small maple trees as Pete pulled an arrow from his quiver and readied to take his first shot. We watched as he drew back and took aim at the target in front of the blind. It was about 34 yards away and was positioned between two oak trees, however, there was a good foot wide window to shoot through.

Pete drew back, put his sight pin on its mark and squeezed the trigger on the release. The arrow hit its mark spot on.

“If that was your hunt, you’d be dragging pig,” Mike shouted.

“Let’s see what you can to with that mean looking boar quartering away on your left,” I suggested.

Again, Pete drew back and like his first arrow, hit his target right in the bull’s-eye. His third effort was equally effective.

“OK Pat, let’s see what you can do,” my Irish buddy said.

I opted to shoot at the right hand target first and although my shot was a couple inches from the bull’s-eye, it still hit its mark and would have done the job. After that I focused on the middle target and nearly stuck my arrow in the same hole as Pete’s, however, when I fired on the left had target, my arrow nicked a tiny limb on the brush pile and it disrupted the flight on my arrow and I watched it hit a big oak tree smack in the middle.

“What the heck was that!” Pete said with a laugh. “You don’t want to be doing that on your hunt.”

I tried the shot again and hit the bull’s-eye.

Mike went last and hit his targets dead on. After that we moved the wild boar targets around and shot another round. We all did well before moving them yet again.

When we decided to call it a day, we all agreed that these practice sessions will help give us confidence on our hunts.

“We should get together and do this often,” Mike suggested. “It will only make us better.”